By Jack Mangrove
With the great weather last weekend, anglers were heading offshore in numbers, the mackerel have been in great numbers with reefs like Sunshine, North, Halls and Jew Sholes producing some great fish.
Watching for bird activity has been one of the ways to find a school of feeding fish.
Mack tuna and spotties have been feeding on the top with the larger Spanish seeming to hold a little deeper.
Slugs cast to the edges of the schools have been a popular way to target the pelagics, another great option is five inch jerk shad soft plastics on a fast retrieve.
Anglers that did the run out to the Barwon Banks and to the reefs off Double Island have been well rewarded with some great fish coming from the bottom, including those that fished the bottom at North and Sunshine Reefs were rewarded with some great trout, sweetlip and the odd cobia.
In the Noosa Rivers there have been some great sessions on the trevally with the Ski Run and Woods Bays being the hot spots.
In the low light periods fish have been bashing baitfish that have been brought in on the bigger tides, surface poppers are perfect for when the fish are feeding on the surface, so look for those big early morning or late afternoon tides and you should see plenty of action.
This is also a great time to target large flathead in the river, midway through the run out tides the perfect time, cast you lures up onto the shallow banks where the flathead love to sit in waiting for a passing morsel of food, soft plastic are the way to go here with prawn profile and brightly coloured fish imitations also working well.
Fish over the 75cm mark are not uncommon and must be returned to the water.
Jack are also prolific with some great fish coming for the upper reaches of the river, the area between the lakes has been the prime target area with plenty of snags and deep ledges for the red fish to hide.
On the beaches, the weekend saw heaps of four wheel drives heading up the beach on Noosa’s North Shore.
Whiting, dart and flathead have all been taken from the closer gutters, small bait fish prawns worms and pippies have all been prime baits.
The anglers that were up late for the high tide were rewarded with tailor and smaller jew.
On the Southern beaches good bags of whiting have come Marcus and Peregian beaches.
Freshly pulled worms have been the gun bait.
So on behalf of Jack Mangrove, best of luck on your fishing adventures!
